Pato O’Ward was left searching for answers after qualifying 10th for Sunday’s XPEL Grand Prix at Road America.
The 27-year-old Mexican, who currently sits fifth in the IndyCar Series championship standings, clocked a flying lap of 1m,44.4003s around the 4.014-mile, 14-turn natural terrain road course. It was a significant drop from his pace-setting time of 1m44.0029s in second practice on Saturday morning, where he was the only driver to go out an attempt a run on a set of softer alternate tires.
When interviewed by FOX Sports, O’Ward admitted the strategy to run alternates in practice helped them dial in the balance of his #5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet early on, but that data seemingly went out the window when the qualifying began.
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
Photo by: Geoff Miller / Lumen via Getty Images
“It helped me just get a better balance on where the car was debating on whether we maybe should have gone black [harder primary compound] there,” O’Ward said.
“It’s just… the tires have been so wonky from one set to another, like the car has transformed completely from using two sets of softs, but even multiple (drivers) like (Alex) Palou lost six tenths from Q1 to Q2. I lost three tenths, three and a half tenths. It’s very strange, very, very strange. We knew this soft tire was already working quite weird compared to where the prime was.
“Yeah, I generally thought we had a little bit more to give there to fight at least. But I was just skating out there. Just the car was sliding around a lot. And I don’t really think that the track has changed so much in order to have that, those issues as exponential as they were. So it looks like we’re not the only one. Even (Will) Power, I think, lost six tenths from Q1 to Q2 on the same set of fresh tires. So I don’t know.”
Pato O’Ward, Arrow McLaren
Photo by: Penske Entertainment
With a 55-lap race ahead, there is still plenty of optimism for O’Ward, who has two podium finishes in his previous eight starts at the track based in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
“At this point, all we can do is really just try and maximize what we think we need for the race,” O’Ward said. “And, you know, so far it’s been a very smooth weekend. But, yeah, I just say every time that you put a new set of softs on, it feels like a coin toss of what you get from the car. So we just need to put our heads down for tomorrow and fight our way forward as best we can.”
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